When The Hurlyburly's Done
by Jeanne Marie
Summary: The sequel to "I Talk Of Dreams", in which Arthur is a very bad liar, to himself as well as others, and Eames still manages to be amused, even when he's unconscious and like to die.


Lalita's horrified gasp fills the tiny room. There's something to be said for a scenario wherein that is regarded as a relief. "Bloody fucking hell," she says. The profanity sounds odd with the posh accent she earned growing up privileged in New Delhi. "I can't help you lift him. I'll get Jurgen."

Lalita takes the wheel so Krongell can stay in the back with Eames. Arthur, in the passenger seat with arms that feel stiff as wood, doesn't have a task. His wandering eyes find some kind of cloth on the floor. He doesn't care whose it is, or even what it is. He has to wipe his hands.

"What happened?" Arthur asks, twisting the tacky cloth before he throws it out the window. Lalita's tense answer and Krongell's contributions wash over him without providing any satisfaction whatsoever. _You're allowed to wake up now,_ he thinks.

In his head, Eames chuckles. _Permission appreciated, but exactly how much of my life is lived by your leave, Arthur?_

"Eamesy," Krongell barks. An indecipherable string of Afrikaans is let loose as he slaps Eames in the face and tries again two more times.

Goddammit.

Krongell keeps pressure on the wound, though, which says that he still has a pulse, even if he has stopped breathing. When they make it to the hospital, Arthur can't help vaulting out of his seat. Krongell helps get Eames out of the car and deposit him on the ground. It's the middle of the night and no one is around to notice them, so Arthur calls out hoarsely.

Krongell looks meaningfully at Lalita, who hasn't left the car. "Arthur," he says.

People start to join them outside and it's all urgent voices and hands pushing him away. By the time he thinks to look, the SUV is gone.

"That's a bullet wound, yeah?" asks someone in green scrubs.

"Shrapnel," Arthur says. "Our car rolled over and the gas tank exploded." It could be the single most pathetic lie he's ever told. He's not even sure why he said it. If he didn't have it in him to be convincingly inventive, he should have kept his mouth shut, or said that he simply found him like this. That wouldn't have been completely outside the realm of possibility.

Eames's blood is caked underneath his fingernails and in the lines of his knuckles and palms. He really should leave. Lalita and Krongell are well on their way to the airport by now. Today they're much better at being a criminal than he is.

Arthur sits. There is no one to call, but he stares at his phone anyway, for something to look at instead of the unfortunates around him. He finds the text Ariadne sent him three days ago.

"I miss it," the message reads simply. He considers having someone snap a photo of his hands to send to her. After explaining what the dark red bits are, he'll ask if she even knows what it is she misses. Pulling her into that job in Monte Carlo was a mistake. He should have let her be. They should have let her be.

He tries to blame Eames for it because, while her name had popped into Arthur's mind, it was Eames who said it out loud.

"The girl is a treasure, really," Eames said. "That ice station. You never saw it, but..." He shook his head. "Spectacular. To be honest, it's worth the price of admission just to see what she comes up with next."

Two uniformed officers pull Arthur into a semi-deserted hallway. They're already operating on little patience because of the story he told the nurse. But coffee and time have improved his ability to stretch the truth, and they back down, saying that someone might come back with more questions later. As if he'll still be there. He's leaving. First he has to corner a member of the staff to get some industrial grade soap and a set of scrubs to change into, and then he's gone. If Eames survives, he might be sent to prison in connection with the three bodies they left four blocks from the gas station. That's fine, though. Someone somewhere can probably get him out of it. There's no reason for Arthur to stick around.

The glare of the mid-morning sun prevents Arthur from focusing properly on the man in blood-spattered green standing in front of him.

"I'm sorry," the doctor says.

Immediately Arthur nods to himself. Now he knows, at least.

It doesn't occur to him that there are other types of bad news. He frowns, genuinely surprised, when the doctor not only doesn't leave but continues talking.

"...I can't promise he'll still be alive tomorrow."

In the midst of preparing to turn away, Arthur freezes. He blinks. So. So he made it through surgery then. Arthur offers the tired surgeon a quiet, cracked thank you and shakes his hand. He can absolutely leave now.

He does, finally, but somehow he ends up at a nearby hotel instead of another country. And he returns after a few hours. Then the cycle repeats, several times. It's funny how much easier it is to go once he acknowledges to himself that he'll be back. The police stop being a concern, presumably because the others stopped to do some housecleaning before they got on the plane. Now they believe that Eames was the victim of a robbery and that Arthur talks without thinking in times of stress. The fact that he has stayed close might have helped convince them. Criminals are supposed to run, after all.

After a while, Eames woozily looks in his direction and recognizes what he's seeing.

"Why," he whispers. It's the beginning of a question he doesn't have enough breath to finish. Arthur knows, though, from the look in his eyes, what Eames meant to ask.

"Catching up on my reading," Arthur says, holding up a small paperback with clean hands. "Random lines from Macbeth have been running through my mind for the last three days. I thought maybe they'd stop if I broke down and read the play. Haven't done that since college."

"Oh," Eames says as if he understands. More than likely he doesn't have the strength to maintain confusion. Asking a second question would mean having to pay attention to the answer, and that could possibly lead to a third. He closes his eyes, and Arthur lets him.

Arthur watches as Eames falls asleep, then returns to his book. Eames looks like he may live at this point. Really, there's not a thing keeping him in this awful city. But he turns the page, knowing deep down that he isn't going anywhere.


End file.
